Senator Kamala Harris is calling for the Department of Justice’s inspector general to probe whether President Trump urged Attorney General William Barr to investigate his opponents.
Harris made the request in a letter sent to Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Friday after grilling Barr on the same issue in Wednesday’s Senate hearing regarding the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
‘In response to my questions during the [Senate Judiciary] hearing, Attorney General Barr proved unable or unwilling to state whether he had been directed to open investigations at the request or suggestion of the President or other White House officials — an alarming response that strikes at the very heart of the rule of law and threatens to undermine the longstanding independence of the Justice Department,’ she wrote in the letter.
‘I request that the Office of the Inspector General investigate whether the Attorney General has received or acted upon such improper requests,’ she said.
Calif. Sen. Kamala Harris grilled Attorney General Bill Barr on Wednesday about why he didn’t personally review all the underlying evidence before announcing the conclusions of the Mueller report
Harris is now calling for an investigation into whether Trump urged Bill Barr to investigate his political opponents – including Hillary Clinton
The letter came two days after the democratic senator questioned Barr over his release of Mueller’s Russia report.
The report noted instances where Trump had suggested the Department of Justice to investigate his political opponent Hillary Clinton.
However, when Harris asked Barr whether Trump or anyone at the White House suggested he investigate anyone he appeared flustered and failed to answer the question.
Harris includes that exact exchange in her letter to the inspector general.
‘Attorney General Barr, has the President or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?’ Harris quizzed Barr Wednesday.
Barr then went on to question the term ‘suggest’.
‘I’m trying to grapple with the word ”suggest.” I mean, there have been discussions of, of matters out there that, uh—they have not asked me to open an investigation,’ Barr said.
Harris then asked if anyone had ‘hinted’, ‘suggested’ or ‘inferred’, to which Barr said he didn’t know.
‘There must be no doubt that the Department of Justice and its leadership stand apart from partisan politics, and resist improper attempts to use the power of federal law enforcement to settle personal scores,’ Harris wrote.
This is the letter Harris sent Friday to the DOJ’s inspector general, which highlights her exchange with Barr as she quizzed him in Wednesday’s hearing
Harris spent most of her time in the spotlight on Wednesday clobbering Barr for not personally reviewing Mueller’s underlying evidence before delivering a verdict to Congress that cast the president in a kind light.
The letter was sent to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Friday
Barr said in a late March letter to House and Senate Judiciary Committee leaders that Mueller had cleared Trump of charges that his campaign colluded with Russia, and that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had concluded Mueller lacked enough evidence to bring an obstruction of justice charge.
‘We should assume and we should expect that he will take his duties seriously, and examine and be familiar with the evidence before he makes a decision,’ Harris said Thursday morning on CNN’s ‘New day’ program.
‘He failed to perform his duties and I find it highly irresponsible and frankly unprofessional.’
The raw evidence in the Mueller probe consisted of millions of pages of documents and interview transcripts. Barr said Wednesday that he accepted Mueller’s descriptions of that evidence ‘as fact.’
President Donald Trump reacted to Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with a counter-punching defense of his attorney general, blasting California Senator Harris and other Democrats for how they grilled him.
‘She was probably very nasty,’ Trump said during an evening interview on the Fox Business Network, reflecting on Harris, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
President Donald Trump complained that Harris and other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee were ‘ranting and raving’ to get attention for their presidential campaigns
The trio of Democrats all had their turn to question Barr about his decisions leading up to the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report, and they’re all running for president.
‘How about these three people? Three of them were running for – three of them, they’re not doing very well – but three of them are running for a particular office,’ Trump sniffed.
‘They’re out there ranting and raving like lunatics, frankly,’ he added, complaining that electoral politics invaded the hearing.
‘How is that fair?’ Trump asked. ‘So you have Bill Barr, highly respected, great attorney general. And he’s got to take the abuse from people that are running for office? They don’t care about this, they’re just looking for political points, and I really think that the American people see through it so easily.’